Spectre x360 15 OLED (2020)

It allows me to toggle on HDR support for games and movies, but I haven't played with that yet. It is definitely on my to do list though.

Sent from my SM-N960U1 using Tapatalk

 

This 2020 edition is my only experience with HP's digitizer offerings, but I'm extremely satisfied with it so far. When using a Surface Pen I really can't notice any degradation in performance compared to my Surface Book. The included HP pen is pretty slippery and I don't like the design (no pen clip, button layout, no eraser). I honestly don't care about that though. I can buy a better pen (or use my old one), but the screen's digitizer can't be replaced.

It fits right into my workflow =)

 

That's really great to hear, and thank you for the input. I've been so turned off by what others have written that I've never even tried to use my x360 for note taking, though that's in part because my iPad mini is more comfortable for that purpose. As an "analog" fountain pen collector I'm very sensitive to how smoothly pens lay ink on paper, but frankly not nearly so picky about how precise and smooth digital pens are, since they're better than old fountain pens regardless! Still, to hear comments from our colleagues, one would think that, as I alluded to, digital inking on a 2020 HP device was equivalent to pre-Surface technology. Can't wait to try it!

 

@lovelaptops

Jeff, FWIW, all of the windows OEM's have told us that it's an engineering juggling act between a premium pen experience and a touch one. e.g making the pen feel more paper like makes the finger feel draggy and so on.

I'm not making excuses, just relaying what they have told us and in our admittedly limited corner of the world with our own devices we have seen the same thing and have yet to settle on what we would call ideal.

 

@desertlap,

Thanks always for your insights. Your "corner" may be "limited" but your ever-expanding knowledge, experience and access to the front lines of the manufacturers make you a treasure to me, and to this forum.

I never realized there was a tradeoff between touch and pen digitizing. Does anyone use dual digitizers? Or, to get to the answer, how does Apple have both magnificent touch and pen experiences? My horsesense is that far more use touch than styli, but that it's mostly for a quick poke or short scroll by Windows laptop/tablet users, rather than using a laptop as a tablet with keyboard wrapped under as in 2-1 or detached. Ironically, while touch is very responsive on my Spectre x360, scrolling via the touchpad is annoyingly sluggish, the way you describe a digitized screen, optimized for styli.

 

I think the issue is that the 'pen on paper feel' requires moving the pen across a slightly rough surface, and a nice touch experience requires a smooth surface. That's difficult to manage. Although imo the Yoga 12 with its semi-matte screen and EMR did very well.

 

Tw comments on that. Within the hardcore Apple community, there's a significant group that claims the touch experience has suffered as a result of adding Pencil support and conversely that Pencil quality is being held back by "touch freaks"

On the PC side I think it's more about market dynamics. Both Lenovo and HP have told us that only a small minority of users actively use the pen and that touch is by far 80-20 ratio more used. That's even true even among those that purchased a device specifically for stylus support.

That seem's odd to us I know, but we are a self selecting, tiny minority.

PS: I wont bore you with details but there are much more trade offs at the hardware level too, one reason why MS favors Ntrig is that it's "easier to integrate" with PixelSense

 

I've been using digital ink for so long (17 years now?) that pen on paper emulation isn't actually something I want. I have found that, once you get used to it, a more slippery than paper feel is actually better... just not to the point where the friction is zero. The Surface Pen+X360 screen feels like it is just about in the sweet spot IMO.

 

That sounds right, that's the feel the Yoga 12 had iirc. Similar for my ancient x220t.

 

I still have mine - though rarely fire it up. I checked: it's still great: great writing with Wacom EMR on matte surface, great 400 nit, 1080p screen. The exception that proves the rule: touch screens don't need to be glossy and matte coated screens don't have to look grainy. Is Lenovo the only mfr left that even offers matte screens? Do they still offer matte touch screens? Why should there be so little perceived market for them?